Column: The ‘Flash’ that didn’t: How many franchise ‘sure things’ will it take for the movie industry to rethink its future?

Michael Phillips | Chicago Tribune (TNS)

“Flash,” meet pan.

Last weekend at movie theaters, DC’s stand-alone superhero film “The Flash” starring Ezra Miller, twice, and featuring three Batmen (Michael Keaton most prominently), fell short of box office projections. A fiscal disappointment in the works, most certainly. Same for Pixar’s “Elemental,” another film that needs north of $500 million worldwide, and likely more, to break even on its production and marketing.

This is coming off Disney’s live-action $250 million remake of “The Little Mermaid,” which has done … eh. Not a hit. Good, actually, certainly livelier than most of the animation-to-live-action adaptations. But it’s a might-see. Not a must.

How much longer can this recycling continue?

So much red ink this year, though some franchisees did well: “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” for one. Director-writer James Gunn, now co-CEO of DC Studios, may well be what’s needed to get people interested in Superman, Batman and the rest of the indestructibles all over again. Gunn’s “Superman: Legacy” arrives in 2025.

The managing editor of the movie website rogerebert.com Brian Tallerico told me recently: “With so many streaming options, audiences are starting to say: I didn’t like the last one. So I’m not going to see the next one.”

We talked the other day about money, sequels, franchise exhaustion, failures of imagination and other delights. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: Brian, let’s talk flops for starters. Is there any silver lining to be found with so many lesser-quality films semi-tanking this year, from “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” to “Fast X” to “The Flash”? Are there lessons for the studios to learn here?

A: The lesson’s right there in your question when you mentioned “lesser quality.” I mean, “Across the Spider-Verse” isn’t failing. It almost feels like audiences are being more discerning, doesn’t it? They don’t want to devote their time to a sequel to something that’s basically about diminishing returns. Like “Fast X,” or the DC movies. Or Pixar, sadly. Though that’s another story: I think people just got used to watching Pixar movies on Disney+. With so many streaming options, people don’t see stuff just because they feel like they “have to.”

Q: This year, by April, we’d already seen a half-dozen franchise pictures of middling quality or less. Are humans really meant to consume “Shazam!” sequels at that quantity?

A: Over-saturation is a definite problem. Think of it: When we were younger, we had to wait three, four years in between “Star Wars” movies. But today there’s a new Marvel or DC product every other week, it seems, if you include the TV stuff. People have started to take it for granted.

Q: Or leave it.

A: Right. I also heard something interesting the other day. Pre-pandemic, a lot of people, fans included, went crazy for “Avengers: Endgame” (2019) and saw it as a final chapter. They didn’t want or need to start right in with a new phase in the Marvel Cinematic Universe after that. I think Marvel made a mistake going straight into another series of stories, with “The Eternals” and “Ant-Man,” characters few people cared about. They should’ve used “Endgame” as a finish line and then come back a few years later.

Q: Good luck retraining the owner-conglomerates on that idea! The idea of taking 10 years in between “Revenge of the Sith” and “The Force Awakens” — it feels like ancient history to do things that way.

A: Also, this idea that a movie has to make a billion, or close to it, to turn a profit — that was never sustainable. The more options people have for their entertainment, the more the box office numbers go down. The idea that “The Little Mermaid” and “Fast X” are bombs, even with the amount of money they’ve made, it’s crazy.

Q: Look at the new Indiana Jones film (coming June 30). The budget for director James Mangold’s movie landed in the $300 million range, not including marketing. The economics of big-budget action filmmaking have changed in 42 years, since “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” But “Raiders” cost around $20 million in 1981. That’s about $70 million in today’s dollars.

A: What did “John Wick 4″ cost to make?

Q: About $100 million. Which is what “Across the Spider-Verse” cost. That’s half or a third of a lot of the flops so far this year.

A: And “Spider-Verse” and “John Wick 4″ both look great, and made a nice fortune. Most modern CGI (computer-generated imagery) in live-action movies, I mean, most of it looks bad now. Imagine how it’s going to look in 10 years. I watched “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” the other night for Father’s Day, with the family. Looks great. Looked great in ‘89, looks good now. The stunt work, the way Spielberg sets up the action scenes — all good. A sense of composition has been lost with modern CGI. No one will ever remember an image from “Quantumania.” Not even the people who made it.

Q: What should filmmakers be talking about with the studios about expectations in this massively uncertain phase of the film industry?

A: Don’t make assumptions about viewers, and what you think they want to see. Don’t assume people want a “Flash” movie just because it’s part of some big corporate strategy the audience doesn’t care about.

Q: When some of us were 12, we saw plenty of kid-oriented stuff, some good, some not. But now the industry relies on enforcing a kind of perpetual adolescence in everyone. What’s the endgame for an industry forever catering to our childhoods?

A: I was thinking about that, rewatching “Last Crusade.” I saw that the same year I saw “Dead Poets Society” and “Field of Dreams.” Same year as “Do the Right Thing.” Those movies don’t get made anymore, by and large. The mid-budget, wide-release movie has disappeared. And something’s been lost.

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(Michael Phillips is the Chicago Tribune film critic.)

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